Saturday 3 June 2023

Can Interactive-Dynamic Influence Diagrams (I-DID) be helpful for Clarifying Rules?

I came across this interesting concept and thought it should be applied to manual wargames rules (see below, forget the highbrow writing and text - do the diagrams make it clear? All you need to do is get your head round the legend.):


8 comments:

Martin Rapier said...

Richard Brooks uses Decision Tables in many of his rules, and Tbh, most players run screaming in terror from them, so I rewrite them in more conventionally accessible language.

This reminds me of the formal methods stuff I used to teach on Computer Science courses, it may well expose numerous logical inconsistencies, but it will only work as an explanation mechanism for (quite a small) subset of cognitive styles.

Stu Rat said...

No.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Fair comment Stu Rat, I was just asking the question ;)

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I think you are right Martin .. just trying to avoid unambiguous languages .. only after about teh tenth reading did I figure what the original Panzer Blitz rules really meant about indirect fire and HE - the fact that you fired at [one or more] counters rather than hexes (which was different to later rule sets including Panzer Leader).

Archduke Piccolo said...

I used to write small user manuals - pamphlets, really - for inhouse users software applications. Each serialised instruction was one step and one step only in a series of instructions. They were written in sentences easily understood. Seemed to be OK - no one came to me with questions or complaints, and the work got done.

One of the problems of the WRG war games rule sets was that they were written in a spare, compact style that kept the price of the rule book down, but led to annoying ambiguities that called for vast quantities of paper with 'interpretations'.

Cheers,
Ion

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I hear you Archduke Piccolo - WRG/DBA and DBM variants of "Barkerese" betray his legal training and education .. where correct and straightforward they are good (typically helped by watching a game first then reading the rules after to understand the options) but ambiguous punctuation and strained use of a comma can create the agony of misinterpretation. I remember the saying 10 rules of DBA rules clarified in 74 pages of explanation. I suppose my question is really can I-DID's be simplified further to be of use in rule writing .. I am a diagram man .. I believe the longer the word clauses the more opportunity for paradoxes to creep in.

Trebian said...

I put a simple flowchart with yes/no decision boxes in "It Rolls for Ivan" for the NYET/DA! test, as I couldn't get the text exactly as I wanted it (you'll be able to see this at COW if you want) but generally I don't like diagrammatic explanations.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

If it helps square the rules circle and serves to remove ambiguity I'll buy anything for a dollar .. rather than move aside for ChatGPT